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When you are using XML, chances are that you are not only running a basic website, but a powerful web application such as an online store. If this is the case, it’s not only important to have a good understanding of XML but also to get the right web hosting for your project.

The huge problem regarding web hosting is that the supply is extremely high, and users have to decide between thousands of different web hosting companies that are offering their services on the Internet. Finding the right hosting company, that is a great fit for your needs, can be pretty tough.

One of the web hosting companies I have already used several times myself on different occasions is a company called iPage. This hosting provider is in the business for many years, offers very sophisticated services, has a lot of experience in the field of hosting and a great customer service.

If you want to learn more about this company and the different hosting packages, they are offering you might want to check out one of the most detailed iPage reviews that you can find on the entire Internet. In my opinion, the editors over at CloudWedge.com did an excellent job by putting this review together.

The iPage hosting plans are designed to meet the needs of different projects. They are offering hosting that’s great for running a smaller website, like a digital business card. The also have hosting that suitable for WordPress blogs, content management systems or online shops. Finally, you can even host highly complex web applications with them.

However, what I want to point out in this post is that a good understanding of XML will help you to structure your data the right way. But, in order to provide a great user experience for the visitors of your online presence you also need to have stable, reliable and fast web hosting.

Before we begin, it’s best to ensure that you’ve already got a simple grasp over the following things:

VBScript, JavaScript, HTML and other web scripting languages, as well as basics of building a web page.

If you aren’t already knowledgeable about these topics, it’s probably best to do some studying before you get started on the XML basics.

What is it?

A hardware and software-independent tool that allows to carry information. It’s a relatively easy to learn programming language. One of its biggest benefits over HTML is that it allows for the creation of custom tags.

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. It’s similar to HTML in that it’s a markup language. The language was created to describe data.

With this language, you have to define a set of tags because XML tags. Formal descriptions of data will be given through a DTD, or Document Type Definition.

What are the differences between HTML and XML?

You can’t use XML to replace HTML because HTML and XML have both been designed with two entirely different goals in mind:

HTML is designed to focus on the appearance of data and to display it.
XML is designed to focus on what the data is and how to describe it.

These are the fundamental differences that you’ll immediately notice between the two languages. XML is all about describing information that’s given, while HTML is just all about displaying it.

Using XML for web development in the future

The XML standard has developed at an astonishing rate, along with a huge number of software vendors that have embraced the standard. It’s widely believed that XML is just as important to the web’s development as HTML has been. It’s going to be utilized for data manipulation and data transmission for a long time to come across the entire web.

HTML is well complimented by XML

The tags that HTML documents use for markup and structure are predefined. That means that the author’s only able to use a tag that has already been defined in the HTML standard.

XML differs from this in that it permits the author to define a custom document structure and tags.

When you learn the basics of XML, it’s important to remember that it isn’t just a simple language. XML is a “meta-language”, which means that it allows for the creation or definition of other languages. You can create another language such as MathML, RSS or XSLT.

XML video tutorial

Make sure to watch the following in-depth XML tutorial video. It really helps you to understand the extensible markup language very quickly.